1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an apparatus, system, and method for enforcing policy requirements associated with a service, and more particularly, to an apparatus, system, and method for enforcing policy requirements associated with a service via gradual degradation thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
Service providers sometimes require a recipient (e.g., a user) of the service to comply with minimal and/or mandatory service policy requirements. Service providers that provide large, diverse service offerings may find it difficult to track and/or enforce mandatory service policy requirements. Service policy requirements may include, for example, a user complying with configuration management of a service software application associated with the service (e.g., updating versions of hardware and/or software components associated with the service); maintaining an account in positive standing (e.g., no overdue balance on account); and reporting related service oriented data (e.g., individual remote user(s) of the service may be required to synchronize related reporting and data to a centralized database).
In order to enforce minimal and/or mandatory service policy requirements, service providers may employ service software applications that may implement one or more mechanisms configured to quickly disrupt and/or stop the service being offered to a user until the user of the service complies with the policy requirements. In some instances, such disruption and/or stoppage of the provided service may have an adverse effect on a business relationship between the service provider and user, which, in turn, may result in loss of revenue to both the service provider and a user, and/or reduced user satisfaction.